I'm sipping a traditional clover mead at the moment...nothing special at all, 3 pounds clover honey to the gallon of mead, Red Star Premier Cuvee yeast. The batch was started November 15, 2008. But I can't quite figure this thing out.
I opened the first bottle two months ago, in April, and it was nothing like love at first sight. My notes say "a hard one to love"..."overly grassy, vegetal, even a kind of muddy quality." I finished the bottle, but never cared for it. In fact, I was prepared to write off all-clover meads altogether.
And yet here we are, two months later, and I am in love with this mead. I roused out a second bottle, thinking I might blend it with an overly tart orange blossom mead, from the days when I was experimenting with various acid levels to find the "right" one (incidentally, I'm increasingly convinced that the right level of acid addition is zero), and I thought: why not have a glass straight, see if my impression has changed.
Dry but rich--the aroma by itself is nothing much, but roll it on the tongue and inhale, and...ahhhhh...ancient memories of meadows in springtime. Muddy? No--a kind of mellow almost-buttery quality, underneath the rolling green hills that fill the nasal cavity.
And I keep turning it over in my mind: what happened? Did the mead change? Or did I? Did two months--or bottle-to-bottle variation--work this alchemy, or did it simply take a few glasses worth to train my palate to appreciate the sensation of an all-clover traditional mead?
I'm thinking in particular about an experience I had last year, when I proclaimed the hot months of 2009 "The Summer of Cocktails," and set our household on a systematic exploration of probably a hundred different mixed drinks. I picked up a bottle of the bright red Italian spirit Campari, an intensely bitter and herbal concoction, mixed it with soda, and detested it. Mixed an Americano--Campari, sweet vermouth, and more soda. Revolting. But so many sages of cocktail culture spoke so admiringly of the drink! Italian mixed drink culture, such as it is, rests on Campari! Negroni: Campari, gin and more sweet vermouth. Ugh. Campari and orange juice...lots of orange juice...and it was at least quaffable. Even if only just.
But the next day, damn me if I didn't find myself thinking of nothing but Campari...longing, almost, for another go at it. I made a second Americano that evening: beautiful! Today, I keep Campari stocked in the bar, and enjoy a Negroni or Campari Soda for an aperitif.
Now, did the Campari change in that time? Of course not. I changed--I acquired an acquired taste. Taste is such a damn funny business. There are times I wonder why I write tasting notes in the mead journal. When I look at a tasting from a year ago, that's some other guy talking: I'm never going to be that person again.
I opened the first bottle two months ago, in April, and it was nothing like love at first sight. My notes say "a hard one to love"..."overly grassy, vegetal, even a kind of muddy quality." I finished the bottle, but never cared for it. In fact, I was prepared to write off all-clover meads altogether.
And yet here we are, two months later, and I am in love with this mead. I roused out a second bottle, thinking I might blend it with an overly tart orange blossom mead, from the days when I was experimenting with various acid levels to find the "right" one (incidentally, I'm increasingly convinced that the right level of acid addition is zero), and I thought: why not have a glass straight, see if my impression has changed.
Dry but rich--the aroma by itself is nothing much, but roll it on the tongue and inhale, and...ahhhhh...ancient memories of meadows in springtime. Muddy? No--a kind of mellow almost-buttery quality, underneath the rolling green hills that fill the nasal cavity.
And I keep turning it over in my mind: what happened? Did the mead change? Or did I? Did two months--or bottle-to-bottle variation--work this alchemy, or did it simply take a few glasses worth to train my palate to appreciate the sensation of an all-clover traditional mead?
I'm thinking in particular about an experience I had last year, when I proclaimed the hot months of 2009 "The Summer of Cocktails," and set our household on a systematic exploration of probably a hundred different mixed drinks. I picked up a bottle of the bright red Italian spirit Campari, an intensely bitter and herbal concoction, mixed it with soda, and detested it. Mixed an Americano--Campari, sweet vermouth, and more soda. Revolting. But so many sages of cocktail culture spoke so admiringly of the drink! Italian mixed drink culture, such as it is, rests on Campari! Negroni: Campari, gin and more sweet vermouth. Ugh. Campari and orange juice...lots of orange juice...and it was at least quaffable. Even if only just.
But the next day, damn me if I didn't find myself thinking of nothing but Campari...longing, almost, for another go at it. I made a second Americano that evening: beautiful! Today, I keep Campari stocked in the bar, and enjoy a Negroni or Campari Soda for an aperitif.
Now, did the Campari change in that time? Of course not. I changed--I acquired an acquired taste. Taste is such a damn funny business. There are times I wonder why I write tasting notes in the mead journal. When I look at a tasting from a year ago, that's some other guy talking: I'm never going to be that person again.
